I'm not sure the West will continue as Ukrainians may hope.

Hope springs eternal, but the support they got so far has been quite significant. Biden is evidently interested in checking Putin and their support will likely endure the current row. Europeans may opt out, some of them (Hungary) are nit even in the coalition.

If there's one positive thing in this Poland missile debate, it's the demonstration that NATO is perfectly capable of avoiding escalation into WW3, even when Mr Zelensky is having a bad day. Poland reacted with measure, and so did the US.

I continuously denied that you literally understood my quotes and I still do ("taking into account the deterrence means they both had" is the "precondition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue" (like the NTP and prior to that the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ). — neomac

You then make clear "that Ukraine doesn't have!"

It cannot be clearer that you are claiming the US and Soviet Union can make deals without trusting each other because of the nuclear weapons.

Saying "nuclear weapons" is a precondition to a deal about nuclear weapons, is a tautology. Obviously non-nuclear powers take into account the nuclear weapons of nuclear powers in making deals about nuclear weapons, as well. What else would you do? How do even propose a deal about nuclear weapons that does not take into account the nuclear weapons people do or do not have.

So either you're saying nothing at all, just that people have the idea of nuclear weapons in their head in making deals about nuclear weapons, or then you're saying something meaningful that would have been meaningfully connected to the point you are responding to: that actually having the nuclear weapons is "pre-condition" to making a deal about said nuclear weapons, as a substitute to the trust that gave rise to this discussion. A meaningful argument, just obviously wrong.

So what? There are three reasons your question is failing to take into account: — neomac

Again, reading comprehension.

We agree that the major reason for Russia to not reinvade is the cost of the war. For, if they could get Ukraine for free at no cost of inconvenience, I think we'd both agree they would do that.

So, the reason to not-invade Ukraine last February would be the cost of the conflict (sanctions, fighting and so on).

If there is a peace deal, the situation will be the same. The reason to enter a peace deal would be a bet that from Russia's perspective the cost of another war would outweigh the benefits and therefore they would not reinvade.

If we agree on this point, then we agree that this is in no war a guarantee.

If we also agree the US is not going to nuke Russia if they invade again (or at least not due to anything written on any piece of paper with the word "Ukraine" on it), then there is just no guarantees available. You can call something a guarantee; you can write down "the US will see to it that this deal is respected, that's a Uncle Sam guarantee!" but it's not a guarantee in any sense more than ornamentation added to the agreement for PR purposes. Wording and PR does have some consequence, it's not meaningless, just the US is not about nuke anyone simply due to PR optics of not-nuking them. They'll nuke Russia if they genuinely believe Russia is going to nuke them now or after some series of events they come to believe are inevitable. The decision to nuke Russia or not will have anything to do with any promises to Ukraine; I guarantee you that in the certainty sense of guarantee.

Now, you're whole list:

1. We are in the middle of the war so we don’t see the end of the war nor the full consequences of such war. The Soviet–Afghan War lasted 10 years, could anyone see the end of it and the following collapse of the Soviet Union while they were in the middle of it back then? No, because they didn’t happen yet.
2. Russia was complaining about NATO enlargement since the 90s, did Russia see NATO enlargement stopping for that reason? NATO/US can be as determined as Russia to pursue their goals in Ukraine at the expense of Russia. And since Russia, especially under Putin, took a declared confrontational attitude toward the hegemonic power, Russia made sure that NATO/US will deal with Russia accordingly as long as they see fit.
3. The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. — neomac

Has nothing to do with my point. My point is simply that obviously Russia is willing to pay the cost of war with Ukraine under certain circumstances (such as circumstances that literally exist right now ... if they weren't willing, then they'd be withdrawing right now and the war would be over). Therefore, you could never reasonably assume such circumstances would not reemerge in the future regardless of any peace deal today. If there's no third party to keep Russia to its promise to not reinvade in the context of a peace deal (even ignoring the problem of why we'd believe such a third party would actually act), then there is simply nothing that can be remotely described as a guarantee of not being reinvaded available to Ukraine.

We may empathise why they would want such a guarantee in a peace deal, but it's simply not available. Therefore, if they want a peace deal, insisting on a guarantee in any meaningful sense (non-ornamental sense) is an irrational demand in negotiation, even more so an irrational precondition to negotiate in the first place.

What you list above has nothing to do with my basic observation that Russia is obviously willing to pay the cost of a war with Ukraine, has just happened and so may happen again. None of the third parties will be able to change this basic fact in any scribbling on paper process of whatever you want.

Of course, the alternative to a peace deal is more war, and in such a choice, as you say, maybe continued war is good for the West to "to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power".

However, if this damage is indeed significant, then it would be reason to assume that Russia would not restart a war that was so damaging. But, even if this is good for the West, is it good for Ukraine to be in a war forever with Russia and never make peace?

Since you can perfectly understand that there are implied and increasing non-negligible costs, especially when it’s matter of sunk costs and its psychological effects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), talking about actual willingness or hypothetical willingness in conjectured scenarios doesn't suffice to reason about this matter. And for that reason I’m not sure that Russia could rationally want to aggress Ukraine again. — neomac

Agreements are about future scenarios and contingencies. If Ukraine is demanding "guarantees" ... guarantees for what? Obviously not being invaded again. That's the scenario being negotiated.

If the US is promising something, and for that guarantee to be meaningful, then that means asking the question of "would the US do this thing even if it otherwise wouldn't want to?". A promise is only meaningful if it actually compels you to fulfil your promise in circumstances you don't want to anymore.

Now, the answer to the question "Would the US intervene again in Ukraine even if it really doesn't want to, for whatever reasons, just because it promised Ukraine as much?"

The answer is: No, it won't.

It will just forget about the agreement under such circumstances, but more likely just negotiate the agreement in such a way as to not really promise anything anyways (because it can, as it has the leverage vis-a-vis Ukraine, so there's simply no reason to make potentially unfulfilled promises anyways).

Therefore, the reason for Ukraine to believe Russia would not invade is not any promise by the US, but simply the cost to Russia of another war being higher than the benefits. If the current war really was premised on the idea that it would be over in 3 days, and has been a disaster ever since, then obviously Ukraine has demonstrated it takes more than 3 days to conquer, so Ukraine can sleep easy with that fact being clear.

Can the agreement commit US to actions that further increase the cost of another war beyond simply fighting with the Ukrainians? Obviously yes, just I honestly don't see any interventions the US would reasonably do in a second war they aren't already doing (again, actions under which Russia is currently willing to wage war). More important to the subject matter, even if the US made such commitments, if the question is asked if anything holds the US to their word about those commitments (promises by the US are a meaningful guarantee), the answer is obviously no.

So, to summarise, not only is "guarantees" not a reasonable precondition to negotiate in the first place, but there is no guarantee that Ukraine can actually secure in any meaningful sense. Placing the word "guarantee" or "guarantors" on the agreement would have very slight PR differences on how any events would actually play out (such as a "super sorry bro" rather than a mere "sorry bro").

Of course, if you want to argue that more war is good for the West and good for Ukraine, then you need not justify Zelensky's unreasonable conditions (to talk peace), but just defend the actual decision of wanting more war and ignore Zelensky' bullshit or then justify it as clever trolling of his partners, the media and social media. It's not like the Western media is able to rationally critique anything he says, so he could literally say anything.

However, this configuration of Zelensky dictating what's true and false to the Western media is one of invitation and not power. What the CIA gives with its right hand, it can take with its left.

Zelensky's credibility can be placed at any moment at any level the US administration wants, without Zelensky having any say whatsoever in the matter.

US administration wants the world to doubt what Zelensky knew or didn't know, intentions behind his statements, about any missiles hitting Poland, paint him as a dangerous fool, done. US administration wants Zelensky to talk peace even if he doesn't want to because there is no peaceful end to the war compatible with the survival of his political career, and controlling billions of dollars of free money with zero accountability and zero "collect taxes and pay debts" requirements nor any governance services quality expectations by anyone ... or opposition media ... or opposition parties ... and win oscars for the performance ... is a pretty nice life style, literally a 2 day operation to have Zelensky start talking peace rather than "we will defeat the Russians".

You were criticising his method of argument and suggesting he's a dishonest interlocutor, which is ad hom, because you were attacking him personally rather than his argument.

(As per the basic definition:

Ad hominem means “against the man,” and this type of fallacy is sometimes called name calling or the personal attack fallacy. This type of fallacy occurs when someone attacks the person instead of attacking his or her argument.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=ad+hominem&oq=ad+hominem&aqs=chrome..69i57.2566j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 — Baden

An attack can be called "ad hominem" and yet not be fallacious in the specific sense of: "A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem). As far as I've understood from the recent exchange between the two, @Christoffer didn't conclude nor suggest that @Benkei's understanding about Zelensky's claims was wrong out of Benkei's dishonest way of arguing. He simply argued that Benkei's understanding of Zelensky's claims wasn't obvious (It could be actions to put much harsher pressure on Russia, it could mean actions to rally military defense lines at the borders, it could mean actions to, as I said, initiate a no-fly zone and be more active in the defense of Ukraine rather than just sending weapons. It could merely mean that the world needs to take more action to prevent Russia from continuously killing civilians.) and then he additionally argued that Benkei's way of arguing was dishonest (The way you handle discussions like these, pointing out that something is "obvious" when it clearly isn't obvious, other than supporting your own argument, makes it impossible to have a discussion with you. You demand that your interpretation is the valid one and then everyone around you should comply based on that interpretation because then you can win that argument... wake me up when you're a more honest interlocutor. ).
And therefore claiming or suggesting that Christoffer committed a fallacious argument ad hominem is questionable. While one can more easily argue that Benkei's claim "I get you're not a native English speaker and the finer points of the translation are lost in you" is a fallacious ad hominem attack, because he seemed to conclude that a correct understanding of Zelensky's claims (like his) depends on somebody being a native English speaker. But that doesn't logically nor empirically follow at all.

He simply argued that Benkei's understanding of Zelensky's claims wasn't obvious — neomac

But it is obvious.

Fist Zelensky Larps as a NATO member claiming an "attack on collective security", as if Ukraine is part of some collective.

This is the key phrase, claiming NATO is under attack.

Second he says "action must be taken", which is perfectly clear what that means in the context.

It's like me yelling "The building is on fire! Action must be taken!" (having no evidence of this), and when my actions cause damages, even lives by causing a panic, claiming that "aha! I didn't say what 'actions,' I could have meant just the situation should be investigated, my statement that was based on nothing verified, and there's no cause for alarm; it's not like I said there's a fire and people should panic or act based on that belief! Where do I say that!?!?!?!."

The only other interpretation available than Zelensky claiming Russia is attacking NATO and therefore NATO must respond with some militarily escalation of one form or another, would be that Zelensky is claiming an attack on collective security by Ukraine on NATO, because Zelensky ordered an attack on Poland that took Polish lives and, generally speaking, Ukrainian actions and reckless subterfuge is a menace to NATO and European welfare since 2014. But, I seriously doubt Zelensky meant an attack on collective security by Ukraine.

If his meaning was Russia, then everyone would understand he means Russia attacked NATO and therefore NATO must respond, at least somehow. If Zelensky does not want peace (requiring compromise and breaking all his extreme exaggerated promises of victory to the Ukrainian people and accepting a deal worse than what was on the table first week of the war), then his best option is escalation ... but he doesn't control the weapons so he can't escalate himself, he needs NATO to escalate.

it's the demonstration that NATO is perfectly capable of avoiding escalation into WW3 — Olivier5

... resulting from a single stray missile fired by one of their allies.

Yes, I'm glad the alliance has met the bare minimum threshold of not starting world war three on the basis of a single incident which their own intelligence shows to be a missile form their own ally. Yesterday they also didn't start the apocalypse because Putin looked at them funny. Well done them.

The response to this single incident included an appeal to "bomb Russia" from the highly influential Atlantic Council, plus mentions of Article 5, and "defending every inch of NATO territory" from the warmongers in the US and other NATO states.

That you find this reassuring is seriously worrying.

That you find this reassuring is seriously worrying. — Isaac

Glad I could worry you a little more than you normally are.

It cannot be clearer that you are claiming the US and Soviet Union can make deals without trusting each other because of the nuclear weapons. — boethius

And what holds for US and Soviet Union doesn't necessarily hold for other countries not possessing such weapons, like Ukraine.

Saying "nuclear weapons" is a precondition to a deal about nuclear weapons, is a tautology. — boethius

I never said such a thing. "Precondition" was referred not to nuclear weapons but to taking into account means of deterrence available to geopolitical subjects concerned about security. The US and Soviet Union possess nuclear weapons so they will take that into account. Nuclear weapons are something "that Ukraine doesn't have!" therefore it's rational for them to find an alternative (e.g. whatever kind of economic-military alliance with the West that could help them hedge the risks coming from Russia). That and only that is what you must have inferred from my claim as I repeatedly clarified.
Now for the tenth (?) and last time. I'm not interested in feeding your personal guinness record of intellectual failures.

If there is a peace deal, the situation will be the same. — boethius

Same with respect to what? If sunk costs are of significant magnitude for Russia or more consistent for Russia than for its rivals then the situation is not at all the same in some relevant sense.
Besides Russia couldn't know at the beginning of this war what would have costed to them this war. Worse than this, it seems to have badly miscalculated a lot of things (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-miscalculations). And once one is trapped inside a sunk cost fallacy, it's really hard to stop it.

reading comprehension. — boethius

The irony.

So either you're saying nothing at all, just that people have the idea of nuclear weapons in their head in making deals about nuclear weapons, or then you're saying something meaningful that would have been meaningfully connected to the point you are responding to: that actually having the nuclear weapons is "pre-condition" to making a deal about said nuclear weapons, as a substitute to the trust that gave rise to this discussion. A meaningful argument, just obviously wrong. — boethius

"Again, reading comprehension".

If we agree on this point, then we agree that this is in no war a guarantee. — boethius

I totally agree with you if and only if you totally agree with me that is perfectly and pragmatically rational for Ukraine to look for "security guarantees" or equivalent to hedge against the risk of Russian adventurism at Ukrainian expenses.

If we also agree the US is not going to nuke Russia if they invade again (or at least not due to anything written on any piece of paper with the word "Ukraine" on it), then there is just no guarantees available. You can call something a guarantee; you can write down "the US will see to it that this deal is respected, that's a Uncle Sam guarantee!" but it's not a guarantee in any sense more than ornamentation added to the agreement for PR purposes. Wording and PR does have some consequence, it's not meaningless, just the US is not about nuke anyone simply due to PR optics of not-nuking them. They'll nuke Russia if they genuinely believe Russia is going to nuke them now or after some series of events they come to believe are inevitable. The decision to nuke Russia or not will have anything to do with any promises to Ukraine; I guarantee you that in the certainty sense of guarantee. — boethius

You are pointlessly obsessing over nuclear bombs. Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Urkainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornament and nothing certain?
BTW, for the third time, who on earth is taking security guarantees in the certainty sense? Can you quote him?

Has nothing to do with my point. My point is simply that obviously Russia is willing to pay the cost of war with Ukraine under certain circumstances (such as circumstances that literally exist right now ... if they weren't willing, then they'd be withdrawing right now and the war would be over). Therefore, you could never reasonably assume such circumstances would not reemerge in the future regardless of any peace deal today. If there's no third party to keep Russia to its promise to not reinvade in the context of a peace deal (even ignoring the problem of why we'd believe such a third party would actually act), then there is simply nothing that can be remotely described as a guarantee of not being reinvaded available to Ukraine. — boethius

Your point looks ornamental, once you take into account my points. Again, who on earth is reasonably assuming such circumstances would not reemerge in the future regardless of any peace deal today? Do you have actual quotes to provide or it's all a strawman argument you are looping over?

However, if this damage is indeed significant, then it would be reason to assume that Russia would not restart a war that was so damaging. — boethius

After some more blablabla you finally converge to my conclusion. So I can spare myself commenting the rest of your blablabla.

He simply argued that Benkei's understanding of Zelensky's claims wasn't obvious — neomac


But it is obvious. — boethius

I wasn't arguing to support Christoff's understanding of Zelensky (I find Zelensky's attitude toward the missile incident questionable). I was arguing against the claim that Christoff committed a fallacious attack ad hominem.

And what holds for US and Soviet Union doesn't necessarily hold for other countries not possessing such weapons, like Ukraine. — neomac

Your exact word was "pre-condition".

Pre-condition for what? A deal concerning nuclear weapons. What's the precondition again? Having nuclear weapons, in your rebuttal to my point that the United States and Soviet Union were able to come to agreements despite not trusting each other (that "trust", such as "trusting Putin", is not a precondition to international agreements and treatise and so on).

You simply are unable to read and understand your own words.

Now you've moved the goal posts from "pre-condition" to "rational requirement" to "taking into consideration" all the way to "what holds for some parties may not hold for all parties", which is in no way an analogue for "pre-condition".

Maybe just admit you made a completely ignorant argument because in your own mind it sounded good the idea that US and Soviet Union, having nuclear weapons, don't need to trust each other due to their deterrence of actually having nuclear weapons (even underlining that "Ukraine doesn't have!" said nuclear weapons, so the pre-condition doesn't "hold" for them) and, at the time, you were completely oblivious to the easy and obvious contradiction to such an argument being other non-nuclear states entered the same agreements, so obviously it's not a pre-condition to have nuclear weapons to agree about nuclear weapons.

I totally agree with you if and only if you totally agree with me that is perfectly and pragmatically rational for Ukraine to look for "security guarantees" or equivalent to hedge against the risk of Russian adventurism at Ukrainian expenses. — neomac

It's rational to want to shit gold (in a rectally safe way and not a "careful what you wish for way"). It's rational for Zelensky to want to be king of the world. So, if by "look for" you mean "desire", sure, it's rational to desire a lot of things that won't happen, even knowing they cannot possibly happen.

If by look for you mean some actual objective ... and you are now placing "security guarantees" in quotations to emphasise the ornamental meaning of the phrase in the context we're discussing, then yes, we do agree. But all you're saying is that Ukraine (if it wanted to get a peace deal) should seek as good a deal as it can get, which is obviously true.

The basic point of international relations I have been trying to instruct you about, is that a good international deal if by "good" we mean is actually followed and implemented, is one in which the parties involved carry out their promises because they remain actions they would want to do anyways in the circumstances that follow. All an international relations agreement accomplishes in practice is coordination between willing participants and very slight resolutions of catch 22's where each party would do the actions in questions (such as reduce their weapons stockpiles for their own reasons) but only if the other party was doing so as well (solution, a system of fly over's and other inspections to see the other party is doing what they promised, in which case we'll do what we promised).

Vis-a-vis a peace deal in Ukraine, the primary factor of believing Russia would not simply reinvade is because one believes Russia would not want to, an entirely reasonable belief if one does in fact believe this war was a disaster for Russia and was premised on a total victor in 3 days. If one believed they had this current scenario in mind in launching the invasion (perhaps not as their preferred scenario, but possible and accepted), and were willing to pay the cost to achieve what they have so far, then it stands to reason they may pay a similar cost to accomplish as much in the future.

To believe the US would supply arms again in such a future invasion, again, is to assume they see that, again, as a positive cost-benefit to themselves.

All sorts of things could be in a deal that (if people kept their word) may increase or decrease the cost to Russia of another war, but none of these would be in any sense a "guarantee", except in the ornamental sense of "trust us bro" and not in a sense of certainty nor some legal sense of a court holding a party to their promise (embellishing the legal consequences to compensate the arrogance of someone who "guarantees" and doesn't deliver).

However, the biggest problem to a peace deal at the moment is that Zelensky has made a completely uncompromising position for himself, to justify further fighting at all costs, and that compromising would immediately result in the problem (for Zelensky) that it's a worse compromise than what was available before (in any deal we can imagine the Russians accepting). Of course, the West may have accomplished what it wanted in dragging out the war and damaging Russia as you point out they are want to do, but Zelensky also has constituents not only in Western parliaments but also in Ukraine who may not see the logic for them in such a resolution to the conflict.

I wasn't arguing to support Christoff's understanding of Zelensky (I find Zelensky's attitude toward the missile incident questionable). I was arguing against the claim that Christoff committed a fallacious attack ad hominem. — neomac

Sure, but this defence still requires Zelensky's words as somehow unclear.

And, if we were only talking about "action must be taken", that's ambiguous enough, but the context is incredibly clear, specifically the word "attack" is incredibly clear without alternative meaning.

There's no system of goal post shell game that can be played to turn the meaning of "attack" into "maybe it was an accident, no biggey, nothing to see here" nor "actually, we should probably investigate where the missiles came from".

There's really no other meanings available.

Now, if despite Zelensky's meaning being perfectly clear, you nevertheless see no ad hominem, I do not really care about the ad hominem in itself, wasn't directed at me and I wouldn't care if it was, but the meaning of Zelensky's words claiming Russia has directly attacked NATO does seem to me relevant to discussion.

Now, I would agree Zelensky's words wouldn't cause NATO to do anything anyways, but it is important information about Zelensky's character or if he's in control of his own forces. In Zelensky demanding the data, what is clear is that neither Zelensky nor anyone under his command has any data that indicates any Russian missile they were chasing.

Maybe Zelensky believed his own commanders "in good faith" without asking for the evidence before accusing Russia of having killed two Polish citizens (because he follows the maverick shoot from the hip play book of the league of extraordinary statesmen), but, even if this was true, the commanders in turn have no evidence for their claim.

Now you may "understand" the lying, "given the circumstances", as @Olivier5 would defend, but that is an extremely naive understanding of the circumstances.

Even if the West would never cause a stir about such lying in public, no one appreciates being lied to and that may have serious consequences, perhaps accelerating the "ally fatigue" Zelensky has already been warned about.

Even a liar only wants us to believe their lies but does not like being lied to in turn. "We're all the fucking scum of the earth" is not a team building argument.

Your exact word was "pre-condition".

Pre-condition for what? A deal concerning nuclear weapons. What's the precondition again? Having nuclear weapons, in your rebuttal to my point that the United States and Soviet Union were able to come to agreements despite not trusting each other (that "trust", such as "trusting Putin", is not a precondition to international agreements and treatise and so on). — boethius

Here I claim it again: The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue
The problem is not the word "precondition" but the syntactic ambiguity of "this" which you took as referring to "deterrence means" instead of "taking into account the deterrence means they both had ". This looks to me now the likely trigger of your misunderstanding. Anyways you are wrong.

It's rational to want to shit gold (in a rectally safe way and not a "careful what you wish for way"). It's rational for Zelensky to want to be king of the world. — boethius

I see you understand the word "rationality" as arbitrarily as you understand the word "precondition". Still waiting for you to quote who believed in security guaranties in the sense of certainty. Try harder.

And, if we were only talking about "action must be taken", that's ambiguous enough, but the context is incredibly clear, specifically the word "attack" is incredibly clear without alternative meaning. — boethius

Like "pre-condition" I guess. BTW "clear" in the sense that is obvious to you or in the sense that we should really care about?

If by look for you mean some actual objective ... and you are now placing "security guarantees" in quotations to emphasise the ornamental meaning of the phrase in the context we're discussing, then yes, we do agree. But all you're saying is that Ukraine (if it wanted to get a peace deal) should seek as good a deal as it can get, which is obviously true. — boethius

You are getting closer to the same conclusion. But since you keep insisting on talking in terms "ornamental" then I'll ask you again: Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Urkainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornament and nothing certain?

Mr Zelenskyy acquired a bit of PTSD? Bombs keeping him up at night?

October–November 2022 nationwide missile strikes on Ukraine
^{— Wikipedia}

They might've run low on kamikaze drones.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 17
^{— Hird, Bailey, Klepanchuk, Kagan · Critical Threats · Nov 17, 2022}

The bombings are "cheap" in a way. Go set up gear, push buttons, go for lunch, check the news, repeat. Defense is more tedious. Take'm down aggressively. (Whether that'd frustrate/amuse the Kremlin or not.) On another note, maybe someone implemented the drone swarm concept and is good to do a run?

Putin’s generals preparing for more Ukrainian ‘breakthroughs’, says UK
^{— Rachael Burford · Evening Standard · Nov 18, 2022}

Digging in. Land grab. (Or attempted anyway.)


^{↑ Source}

Try harder to explain my own words to me then. Here I claim it again: The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue
What's the exact meaning of it again? — neomac

That's simply not your original claim, and if it is it means nothing.

Notice the tautological nature of your new claim, which is, seeing as you agree having nuclear weapons isn't a precondition to any agreement about nuclear weapons in anyway, that people just basically take into account information in making decisions. True for pretty much any decisions.

Ukraine doesn't deterrence means ... but also took that into account in negotiating accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

There's actually a long list of countries without nuclear weapons that have agreed by accession or ratification to the NPT, that you can consult at treaties.unoda.org.

So, countries having nuclear weapons is a precondition for these other non-nuclear states taking into account the deterrence means of themselves and other parties etc. etc. etc. in order to decide to agree.

All that's saying is the existence of nuclear weapons, or then their conception, is a precondition to an agreement about nuclear weapons, and people thinking it's a good idea to agree to the treaty (for whatever reason) is a precondition for actually agreeing. I.e. the tautology that if someone agrees to something ... they at least thought they had good enough reasons to do so at the time, why else would they agree. Certainly it's tautological for the "rational agents" you like to sprinkle here and there in these little exchanges.

By definition a rational agent does not do something they are entirely convinced a terrible idea in every way and in no way serves any of their purposes. Obviously. And that's all your saying: US and Soviet Union thought the NTP was a good idea ... as did all the other states that agreed to it who didn't have nuclear weapons.

You're attempt to water down your original claim, clearly trying to rebut my claim that trusting Putin was in no way a precondition to a deal with Putin, is just really boring at this point.

However, it's instructive because it's a good example for anyone following of how the "that's not what I really meant" defence works in terms of mental gymnastics the practitioner can engage in and likely genuinely believe on some level.

I'm sure Zelensky genuinely believes his meaning was not to try to escalate military confrontation between NATO and Russia without any evidence but was all entirely reasonable at the time and still is even if we have to stretch the imagination to the point of being stupid.

I see you understand the word "rationality" as arbitrarily as you understand the word "precondition". Still waiting for you to quote who believed in security guaranties in the sense of certainty. Try harder. — neomac

Shitting gold is not an arbitrary. Gold is worth a lot of money, it's rational to want money according to every economics text book I've ever read, therefore it's rational to want to shit gold if that were possible and safe. Arbitrary would be that I'm just as willing to defend "it's rational to want to be eaten alive by scorpions", which I'm not. I do not think it's rational to want to be eaten alive by scorpions; seems completely irrational.

The point of this example is that stating its rational for Zelensky to want something, such as security guarantees, is not the same as stating it's a rational expectation or even possible for Zelensky to get.

We can agree that it's a rational desire on Zelensky's part, without agreeing he has any way to meaningfully get what he wants nor agreeing that anyone can even offer what he wants. Even if Biden were to swear up and down on his own son's coke, Biden may not be there in 2 years and the next US president not only care nothing for whatever Biden promised by even actively hostile to Zelensky's interests.

Your phrase "look for" is, true to form, ambiguous. It's of course rational to be on the lookout for the satisfaction of desires, even if one does not expect them. If I desire magic to actually exist (despite zero evidence) I may rationally defend being on the "look out" for ferries that have magic dust, of a coke or similar kind.

Where we can start to seriously question my rationality is if I start to put resources into attracting these ferries that I have no reason to believe exist, just would very much like the coke ferries to be an actual thing.

Likewise, if I start to make decisions, spending resources, taking risks, leading thousands of my fellow citizens to their deaths, in my quest to uncover the true magic of ferries, having zero evidence they actually exist, then, the rationality of my behaviour is, at best, highly circumspect and people may come to question my decision making process.

So, if there is no "security guarantee" that can feasibly be made for Zelensky, he may rationally rather that not be the case, but to act based on the expectation of something that cannot be offered would then fall in the irrational category.

It's only rational to make a precondition that cannot be satisfied by any party an obstacle as another way to simply say "no, I refuse to negotiate, more war please" and otherwise irrational preconditions simply a way of trolling people.

That is the issue at hand; the actual debate that is relevant to the discussion and the situation in Ukraine and Zelensky's negoitation position.

Now, if you concede the central point of contention that there is no guarantee available other than ornamentation to an agreement no one expect to be followed a week after it's signed, if circumstances emerge that render the agreement no longer in the interests of the key parties to follow, then certainly there are better and worse deals and Zelensky would want to be as confident as he can Russia won't just reinvade (or then act in his rational self interest and just be concerned about his own immediate political future and wealth, maybe take a bribe to sell Ukraine out to maximise his profits of this whole enterprise; maybe crack open an econ-101 book and look out for number 1 like a boss), but there is zero way for anyone to meaningfully guarantee they'll do what they promise or Russia will do what it promises in such a deal.

The reasons to take the deal are:

1. The alternative is losing on the battlefield and the worse conditions being imposed by force without any further leverage to negotiate conditions.

2. One genuinely believes the parties involved will follow the deal anyways, even without any guarantees (that do not and cannot exist), and that circumstances will stay that way, at least long enough that it serves your own purposes in making the deal.

3. One has no intention to follow the deal oneself, it's all part of a 5D military-diplomatic maverick statesmen move to buy time, track down the coke ferries once and for all, fly off to never-never land, track down the lost boyz and do an insane amount of coke.

4. One has been bribed to sell out ones own country for the next best thing next to magic: the fucking money.

Like "pre-condition" I guess. BTW "clear" in the sense that is obvious to you or in the sense that we should really care about? — neomac

Yes, precondition is also a pretty clear meaning, just like attack.

If you say A is a precondition for B, the meaning is not-A isn't compatible with B ... it was a precondition so it should definitely be there for there to be B.

Saying A is a precondition for B but likewise not-A is also a precondition for B, that's the exact opposite of the meaning of precondition.

Lookup precondition in a search engine results in literally:

precondition
/priːkənˈdɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
a condition that must be fulfilled before other things can happen or be done.
"a precondition for peace" — search engine search for precondition

Notice the strong words like "must" ... and absence of words like "optional" or "nice to have, but not like, an actual precondition".

... Notice the example the search engine produces from Oxford Languages ... "a precondition for peace".

That's simply not your original claim — boethius

Quote whatever you think was my original claim so I can claim it again and then you explain its meaning to me, dude.

Notice the strong words like "must" ... and absence of words like "optional" or "nice to have, but not like, an actual precondition". — boethius

Sure like a rational requirement, like the rules of logic, that's why the word precondition was appropriate for me to use. In other words, the problem is not the word "precondition" but probably the syntactic ambiguity of "this" which you took as referring to "deterrence means" instead of "taking into account the deterrence means they both had ". This might have triggered your misunderstanding. Anyways it remains a misunderstanding.

Notice the tautological nature of your new claim, which is, seeing as you agree having nuclear weapons isn't a precondition to any agreement about nuclear weapons in anyway, that people just basically take into account information in making decisions. True for pretty much any decisions. — boethius

But I didn’t make anywhere the claim that “people just basically take into account information in making decisions”, indeed you are incapable of quoting any such claim. It's like me attributing to you the claim: "basically nothing is certain in life", which is another obvious truth.
My point was and is that available deterrence means must be taken into account by rational agents in the geopolitical arena for both war time and peace time, since security concerns are of paramount importance in geopolitics. From that follows that it’s rational for Ukraine to look for affordable deterrence means alternative to the nuclear weapons (as long as it doesn’t have it) to hedge against the risks of Russian expansionism: e.g. NATO membership and “security guarantees”. The likelihood of this happening depends on the West of course as much as the support Ukraine gets right now against the Russian aggression and prior to such an aggression, independently from the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member yet. But as long as the West perceives Russia as a non-negligible threat and has the means to counter it, Ukraine can rationally exploit such condition (as it has managed to do so far) to have the West stick around at the expense of Russian expansionism during war time and peace time e.g. through NATO membership or “security guarantees”.
What’s catastrophic in your dialectic strategy is that after realising you have badly misunderstood my claims, you are trying to make them ultimately appear at the same time as obviously true (by calling them “tautological”) and most likely false (by calling them “ornamental”).
Unfortunately for you what I claimed is very much consequential and in line with standard understanding of international relations as applied to Ukraine:
Rasmussen characterized the proposed security pact as part of a long-term answer to the West’s long-standing challenge with Russia, rather than as an act of charity to Ukraine, as Washington tries to pivot more resources to geopolitical competition with China. “If we get this right, the security guarantees to Ukraine could fix the Russia problem, because it is in the interest of the U.S. to have a strong and stable Eastern European partner as a bulwark against Russian attacks.”
Volker said the best way to secure Ukraine over the long term was to focus on the country’s eventual accession into NATO, rather than working out an interim option. “It’s good to have this [Kyiv Security Compact] as an alternative that people can chew on,” said Volker, who also served as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. “But when you start stacking it against actual NATO membership, and you start considering this as a possibility at a time when Russia will have been defeated and accepted to live within its own borders, NATO is better.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/10/ukraine-nato-accession-kyiv-security-compact-rasmussen/

Since you keep dodging my questions, here they are again:

• Who on earth is taking security guarantees in the certainty sense? Can you quote him?
• Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Ukrainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornamental and nothing certain?

Until you answer them appropriately, I’ll keep considering your claims for what they look, a monumental straw man argument because grounded on the caricatural assumption that security guarantees is wrongly associated with certainty instead of being rightly associated with hedging against uncertainty.

Some entertaining stories in there, and some not so entertaining:

Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
^{— Wikipedia}

Steven Seagal joined the war? Can't lose then. Unless Chuck Norris...
"The Ghost of Kyiv" seems more standard, if you will. The elusive legendary superhero.
Then there are the weapons with blood magick and the Satanic seals. Scary stuff.

The fake fact-checks are a bit more inventive.

Yo miss! — Benkei

:smile:

Sorry 'can't contribute much to this thread. I'm just here for moral support to you guys.

Going by ...

Putin's Covert Conscription Will Flood 'Overburdened' Russian Forces: ISW
^{— Brendan Cole · Newsweek · Nov 19, 2022}

... Putin's team is moving to war on. From the looks of it, either their losses are higher than what they report, or they have further war plans of sorts. Expansion? Maybe they just aim to flood whatever occupied regions with Russians in uniforms? Starting to look like Putin's Russia is becoming an increased threat to others, which would be bad news.
Meanwhile, ☢ crap in North Korea. :/

From the looks of it, either their losses are higher than what they report, or they have further war plans of sorts. — jorndoe

I think it's pretty obvious that their casualties and overall losses have been substantial. If the US military is estimating about 100 000 casualties (meaning killed and wounded), that is a huge amount. The verified equipment losses are very large. Hence the mobilization has been a stop gap measure.

As Russia doesn't have a large organized system for mobilization and training (because at peace time the training is done in the units now deployed to Ukraine), they likely have to limit the taking in of reservists. The mobilization had simply to be stopped to do the conscription. After the conscripts are possible to be put forward to the units, then the mobilization can continue. I think Putin has understood that something obviously ending up in a mess (as there isn't the organization and the manpower to do it properly), it's better not to make a huge deal about it.

as if Ukraine is part of some collective. — boethius

As if?

The UN? OSCE? WTO?

Or is it that artificial countries run by neonazis aren't part of a collective? :smirk:

If there's one positive thing in this Poland missile debate, it's the demonstration that NATO is perfectly capable of avoiding escalation into WW3, even when Mr Zelensky is having a bad day. Poland reacted with measure, and so did the US. — Olivier5

The idea of one incident then leading to another and then leading to WW3 is the typical unreasonable scaremongering of some. But it's quite natural that saying the obvious, that things do tend to go like this, is basically politically incorrect at least to the nuclear armageddon fearing crowd. Yet nuclear deterrence works: it's pretty hard to go up the escalatory stairs. Sides show obvious restraint.

The fact is that all the potential global clashing points are like this: North Korea vs US and South Korea, Iran vs US, China vs Taiwan and of course, Russia vs US/NATO, all show the obvious restraint when things do escalate.

Let's take an example,

The below pictures are of artillery engagement between North and South Korea. In it several artillery units from both sides engaged in an artillery duel lasting for about an hour which resulted in South Korea having two soldiers killed and 19 wounded, two civilians killed and three wounded and perhaps some North Korean soldiers killed and wounded (South Korea estimates 30-40 North Korean casualties).





And this happened in 2010.

So does anybody remember the great panic in the Korean Peninsula twelve years ago?

No. Even at the time there was no media panic. The out-of-the-blue engagement just raised eyebrowse.

There wasn't any continuation, neither side escalated the fighting. The event wasn't in anybodies interest to escalate. The Bombardment of Yeonpyeong is a forgotten detail in the Korean crisis.

Another example is when during the Trump administration Iran retaliated the assassination of a high level military leader with artillery missile attack on US bases in Iraq. The US didn't respond.

Hence if in this war there would be an escalation: a missile on a logistical base or something, the likely response would be a limited similar response designed specifically to be basically a tit for tat. If by some reason Russian and NATO jets would engage each other, it would be limit to the aircraft at hand, likely in the air at that time.

How the above potential events would lead to all-out nuclear war is beyond me. And beyond any credible reasoning from the nuclear scare mongers, but their motivation is just to alarm people.

Quote whatever you think was my original claim so I can claim it again and then you explain its meaning to me, dude. — neomac

I have little doubts you're actually in such a self-delusion, perhaps on some level vaguely remembering your original point and thinking it was a good one, but now completely within an emotional state that you believe you're rewriting your memories of this conversation is a "good trick" and you deserve a medal or something.

It's extremely boring, but I will entertain it further as my primary purpose on this forum is to develop methods against bad faith debate. Just boringly repeating your delusions is a common bad faith debate tactic, so let continue.

To cite the point under consideration again:

This is just foolish. At no point did either side threaten the other with a first strike nuclear launch if they broke or pulled out of any agreement.
The basis of diplomatic resolutions between the Soviet Union and the US was that each side saw it was in their best interest to avoid a large scale nuclear war, and each side was able to believe the other side believed that too, so some agreements could be reached.
— boethius

You misunderstood my claim. I was referring precisely to the following condition: “each side saw it was in their best interest to avoid a large scale nuclear war”. The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue. — neomac

Now, unless you're now claiming to have zero reading comprehensions skills, of your own words or anyone else's, at this point in the debate the word "precondition" had been the focus of discussion for several pages with a clear meaning; Zelensky uses the word and everyone in the discussion was using the word in exactly the same way, exactly how the dictionary describes it.

So, if you want to say now that you didn't read any of that, just happened to drop into the discussion completely randomly to say absolutely nothing, and just "accidentally" used the word precondition but in an unusual and meaningless way without any intention to reference anything in the debate you were joining, yes, zero reading comprehension would be one explanation. But, in that case you're unlikely to be able to comprehend your lack of reading comprehension through reading. It's also unlikely as you've been engaged in this discussion for a while, and clearly know the bare minimum of "what words mean" in order to take part.

The issue under discussion is "precondition" for negotiation (such as "trusting Putin" or "security guarantees" etc.). You are clearly a partisan to Zelensky jumping in to defend his claims to require preconditions to be met to negotiate, contradicting my claims to the contrary.

Your point is clear, Zelensky's preconditions can make sense even if the deals between the US and Soviet Union are a counter example (on the issue of trust), because there is a difference between them and Ukraine. They have Nuclear Weapons "but Ukraine doesn’t have!"

Which is a meaningful argument. Would make sense (if it was true) as a rebuttal to my claim, that there is a critical difference in the counter example and the situation at hand, supporting Zelensky's insistance on "precondition".

Now, you've moved the goal posts from "pre-condition" all the way to a tautology that in a deal about nuclear weapons the US and the Soviet Union took into account nuclear weapons (the idea, who has them, etc.) just like every other state, nuclear power or not, would do exactly the same, and actually having nuclear weapons was obviously not a precondition to agreeing to the deals that the US, Soviet Union and most non-nuclear states also agree to.

If you didn't think you were making a meaningful point, you'd make it clear that non-nuclear states of course "rationally pursue" the same kinds of deals and "not-having" nuclear weapons is a precondition for doing so (in the way you are using term), and that your use of "pre-condition" means absolutely nothing as the contrary to the precondition in question may result in the exact same actions, which is not what a precondition is (how it's described in the dictionary, how Zelensky uses it, how we were using it in this discussion about Zelensky's use of the term, until you retroactively invented a completely unusual and bizarre meaning that is obviously a lie, and boils down to the the tautology of a "a factor under consideration").

But, anyone who is actually a fan of reading comprehension can clearly see that the structure and meaning of your original claim was that having nuclear weapons was a precondition to enter agreements with untrusted parties and, therefore, it's not "rational to pursue" doing the same if you don't have nuclear weapons.

The intended purpose of your statement is to defend Zelensky's various preconditions as "rational to pursue" given Ukraine does not have nuclear weapons. An argument you continue to make, clearly arguing Zelensky understandably is going to want guarantees in any deal and taking issue with my claim that any "guarantee" will be purely ornamental (perhaps a nice ornament to have, but ornament non the less).

The original meaning is clear and it clearly serves an important function in your overall position that security guarantees are a "rational" precondition for Zelensky to seek out in any peace deal; whereas the US and the Soviet Union didn't require such guarantees in their various peace making dealings because they already had nuclear weapons.

Your original rebuttal to my claim makes perfect sense to support your position and serves a clear roll in the argumentation structure you've developed.

The problem you've encountered is that your position is false: nuclear weapons are not a precondition to enter agreements about nuclear weapons and, more importantly, security guarantees do not exist and cannot be invented to satisfy Zelensky's desire for guarantees (even if we can easily agree he'd want them if they could and do exist and provided to him in any agreement and, even better, as a precondition to even start discussing an agreement; just as we can rationally want a lot of things that don't exist or can't happen or then so unlikely to not-happen that it is functionally the same as can't happen; impossible desires that are actually completely critical to decision making, as often we do not know what is possible or not and to check the feasibility of something, that we'd want it if it were possible, is generally a "precondition" to going and checking, otherwise why would we care? The exception being when we desire it not to be true, as it would present a risk to us, but we go check the feasibility to evaluate our risk mitigation; but this is really the exact same thing that our desire is something not-be-true even it maybe or actually is true, and we are still desiring "A" despite its impossibility, just A is best described as a "not-B" and A is impossible because B is actually true).

The reason to believe the peace deal will work is if one believes things in the real world do and will continue to motivate all the key parties to follow the deal, and will have little to do with what the deal actually says (because, as you've pointed out yourself, international law is "voluntary based" system). The wording of the deal maybe necessary to coordinate willing participants, and some plans are better than others, but what the wording of the deal will not accomplish is keep any party to their word if they decide it's better not to (such as the US, EU, Ukraine, Russia).

Now, the boring response to explaining the obvious to you again will be "Yes! both nuclear and non-nuclear states rationally pursued the exact same agreements, but I was actually talking about counter-factual agreements that didn't happen but could happen that maybe nuclear states might pursue only because they have nuclear weapons and non-nuclear states wouldn't pursue because they don't have nuclear weapons, we can imagine the difference in nuclear status resulting in difference of diplomatic outcomes! The 'pre-condition' I pointed out, although not an actual pre-condition, could nevertheless be a condition that can be different and lead to different decision making outcomes."

Aka: "people take information into account in making decisions, and different configurations of information can lead to different decisions, even under the same rational framework; I have discovered, after hundreds of pages of discussing diplomacy and warmaking, a basic description of the decision making process: people have information and make decisions, and the information, like if you have nuclear weapons or not, is taken into account in making decisions. Do I get a philosophy medal now?"

As if?

The UN? OSCE? WTO?

Or is it that artificial countries run by neonazis aren't part of a collective? :smirk: — ssu

If also want to change the meaning of words around to make boring discussion, be my guest.

"Collective" is a strong word in political analysis, and Zelensky is clearly using it in exactly that very strong way of a collective strong enough to act in common military defence. "Collective security is under attack" is Zelensky's words.

Of course, he certainly would like to be part of the collective he's talking about, but isn't, and obviously you know that. Zelensky know's that too, so the next best thing would be being able to tell NATO what do do, which he tries in his statement.

But, even saying the obvious:

The UN is not a collective and doesn't define itself like that:

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. Currently made up of 193 Member States, the UN and its work are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter.

The UN has evolved over the years to keep pace with a rapidly changing world.

But one thing has stayed the same: it remains the one place on Earth where all the world’s nations can gather together, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity. — UN about page

Certainly capable of collective action, but through this process of gathering together, discussing common problems and finding solutions.

The OSCE literally describes itself as a forum:

The OSCE is a forum for political dialogue — OSCE

And the WTO is quite clearly about trading and not any sort of collective action.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. — WTO

Your examples are far from describing themselves as "collectives", much less any kind of collective that has mutual security and it would make sense to say "attack on collective security".

Of course, you can always join the game of bait-and-switch the meaning of words in order to say nothing and try to bore other participants out of participation. Does the UN involve a "collection" of nations, yes, is that collection a "collective" connoting a pretty strong political bond, far beyond a forum of dialogue, and presumed collective action? No.

Again, Oxford languages as the first result in searching "define:collective"

collective
/kəˈlɛktɪv/
adjective
done by people acting as a group.
"a collective protest"
noun
a cooperative enterprise.
"the exhibition showcases the work of art collectives from more than 20 countries" — Search engine search for Define Collective

No. Even at the time there was no media panic. The out-of-the-blue engagement just raised eyebrowse. — ssu

So you would agree that Russia could employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine "out-of-the-blue" with zero fear of any US response.

... And you'd even make the stronger claim that our media wouldn't even be all too worked up about it, no worries, certainly no reason to panic, just raise some eyebrows at best?

Fist Zelensky Larps as a NATO member claiming an "attack on collective security", as if Ukraine is part of some collective. — boethius

"Collective" is a strong word in political analysis, and Zelensky is clearly using it in exactly that very strong way of a collective strong enough to act in common military defence. "Collective security is under attack" is Zelensky's words. — boethius

Well, NATO is about "collective defence" (that's the phrase they use).
I think, though, Zelenskyy also wanted to put forth that Putin's Russia poses a threat to others, and to unify efforts (Didzis Nestro and others have also aired unease). After all, Putin and compadres have been talking about dire threats to Russia for a while (it's Putin against a couple or so continents), to the point of justification to wage war.
It's that kind of wretched environment. Threats take stage, regardless of technical semantics of "collective". :/

Mr Zelenskyy acquired a bit of PTSD? Bombs keeping him up at night? — ... maybe ...

‘Tyranny and turmoil’ in Russian invasion, US defense secretary says
^{— Rob Gillies · AP · Military Times · Nov 20, 2022}

Autocrats, he said, have been taking notes — both military and diplomatic — on how the war has unfolded and could rip pages out of Russian President Vladimir Putin's playbook in the future. — Murray Brewster · CBC News · Nov 19, 2022

my primary purpose on this forum is to develop methods against bad faith debate. — boethius

That's why I have no pity for your intellectual misery.

Now, unless you're now claiming to have zero reading comprehensions skills, of your own words or anyone else's, at this point in the debate the word "precondition" had been the focus of discussion for several pages with a clear meaning; Zelensky uses the word and everyone in the discussion was using the word in exactly the same way, exactly how the dictionary describes it. — boethius

A sequel of nonsense one after the other:
- I'm claiming that you keep misunderstanding my claim (and I did it even in that quotation!).
- I also explained to you what triggered your wrong understanding of my claim.
- I said nowhere that I used the word precondition as Zelensky.
- You didn't even quote Zelensky's claims where he used the word precondition.
- The rest of your comment follows from your reiterated wrong assumptions, so more of the same intellectual misery, good for the trash bin.

The problem you've encountered is that your position is false: — boethius

Unfortunately for you what I claimed is very much consequential wrt what I argued since the beginning (and you misunderstood) and in line with standard understanding of international relations as applied to Ukraine:
Rasmussen characterized the proposed security pact as part of a long-term answer to the West’s long-standing challenge with Russia, rather than as an act of charity to Ukraine, as Washington tries to pivot more resources to geopolitical competition with China. “If we get this right, the security guarantees to Ukraine could fix the Russia problem, because it is in the interest of the U.S. to have a strong and stable Eastern European partner as a bulwark against Russian attacks.”
Volker said the best way to secure Ukraine over the long term was to focus on the country’s eventual accession into NATO, rather than working out an interim option. “It’s good to have this [Kyiv Security Compact] as an alternative that people can chew on,” said Volker, who also served as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. “But when you start stacking it against actual NATO membership, and you start considering this as a possibility at a time when Russia will have been defeated and accepted to live within its own borders, NATO is better.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/10/ukraine-nato-accession-kyiv-security-compact-rasmussen/

Since you keep dodging my questions, here they are again:

• Who on earth is taking security guarantees in the certainty sense? Can you quote him?
• Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Ukrainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornamental and nothing certain?

Until you answer them appropriately, I’ll keep considering your claims for what they look, a monumental straw man argument because grounded on the caricatural assumption that security guarantees is wrongly associated with certainty instead of being rightly associated with hedging against uncertainty.


P.S.
I re-claim all I wrote, word by word:
This is just foolish. At no point did either side threaten the other with a first strike nuclear launch if they broke or pulled out of any agreement.
The basis of diplomatic resolutions between the Soviet Union and the US was that each side saw it was in their best interest to avoid a large scale nuclear war, and each side was able to believe the other side believed that too, so some agreements could be reached.
— boethius

You misunderstood my claim. I was referring precisely to the following condition: “each side saw it was in their best interest to avoid a large scale nuclear war”. The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue. — neomac

So you would agree that Russia could employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine "out-of-the-blue" with zero fear of any US response. — boethius

Of course not!

I'm implying that if there is an unfortunate accident, let's say Russian aircraft shoots down a NATO aircraft of vice versa, things won't automatically escalate.

This isn't 1914 or 1939. Nobody is looking for a general war.

Of course, what you are saying is what Medvedev said earlier: that the US / NATO wouldn't do anything if Russia used nukes in Ukraine. Naturally to that kind of public statement, US and NATO had to reply in some way.

And of course, backchannels are open and used now.

(France 24, 14th of November 2022) A White House National Security Council official said the CIA chief met Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service to discuss "the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability".

- I said nowhere that I used the word precondition as Zelensky. — neomac

The thread is discussing Zelensky and his preconditions for dozens of pages. I write my views about it, which you then respond to in a way perfectly consistent with the discussion so far as well as what precondition means in the discussion so far and also in the dictionary.

Only after your point is wrong do you go on an endless "axchually" diatribe explaining how you use the word differently to make an empty point.

It's the most boring, bad faith, cowardly way to debate: retroactively dilute the meanings of words to most the goal posts of your claim to something so trivial and tautological it is not wrong ... but also just dumb if that was actually your original point and you're not lying about it now.

But you seem to take yourself for a clever chap, and it's far more clever to lie than to just be an idiot.

For your new story about the word to make any make sense at all, you're asking us to believe you were simply not following the discussion and just-so-happened to use the word in a different sense to make an empty point about how people generally make decisions (taking into account the situation; in this case who has nuclear weapons and who doesn't, although of course having nuclear weapons isn't an actual precondition for anything we've talking about as people without nuclear weapons do the same things).

Unfortunately for you what I claimed is very much consequential wrt what I argued since the beginning (and you misunderstood) and in line with standard understanding of international relations as applied to Ukraine:
Rasmussen characterized the proposed security pact as part of a long-term answer to the West’s long-standing challenge with Russia, rather than as an act of charity to Ukraine, as Washington tries to pivot more resources to geopolitical competition with China. “If we get this right, the security guarantees to Ukraine could fix the Russia problem, because it is in the interest of the U.S. to have a strong and stable Eastern European partner as a bulwark against Russian attacks.”
Volker said the best way to secure Ukraine over the long term was to focus on the country’s eventual accession into NATO, rather than working out an interim option. “It’s good to have this [Kyiv Security Compact] as an alternative that people can chew on,” said Volker, who also served as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. “But when you start stacking it against actual NATO membership, and you start considering this as a possibility at a time when Russia will have been defeated and accepted to live within its own borders, NATO is better.” — neomac

Do you even understand what you are reading?

This is a proposal exactly in the understanding of international relations I've described: whatever the US does, now or in the future, is because it's in the US interest and no Ukraine. There's no charity towards Ukraine now nor in the future.

So first of all, what's the corollary to his idea? Well, if his theory turns out to be wrong for whatever reason, then the US would cease supporting Ukraine, and look out for number 1 as it always does.

You can also see clearly the ornamental nature of guarantee. For, if it stopped being in the US interest to carry out this plan, maybe the dust settles and Russia offers a good deal to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to cease arming it, the basic premise of the entire proposal is the US is going to do that: the only way for Ukraine to benefit from interaction with the US is if Ukraine's interest aligns with the US' interest and here's an idea for that in the long term. Consequence? If this alignment of interest were to break down for any reason, Ukraine would not be able to rely on these "guarantees" and would discover that the word guarantee in this context is purely ornamental.

"If we get this right, the security arrangements to start and are in no way guaranteed down the line to Ukraine could fix the Russia problem," is the exact same meaning as "guaranteed" in the context. Diplomats and political analysts like calling them guarantees, as it seems nicer.

As for the theory itself ... it's just really stupid.

Even according the author, you could only finalise this plan at "a time when Russia will have been defeated and accepted to live within its own borders, NATO is better".

But if Russia has accepted to live within its own borders after a long and bloody war and eventual "defeat", in some sense that doesn't involve actual defeat in Ukraine v Russia, then Ukraine can be slipped into NATO as Russia will be so weak as to be unable to oppose it.

However, if Russia has accepted to live within its own border ... why would it be "in the interest of the U.S. to have a strong and stable Eastern European partner as a bulwark against Russian attacks."

Why would a nation that has accepted to live within its own borders attack anyone?

But, I'm sure you have some new boring diatribe explaining how this proposal is self contradictory and stupid ... if words mean what they they say in the dictionary!!! But they obviously don't ever!!!

I'm implying that if there is an unfortunate accident, let's say Russian aircraft shoots down a NATO aircraft of vice versa, things won't automatically escalate. — ssu

We agree here. If we are only considering Zelensky lying to us; I think what matters is the intention. Zelensky's intention is clearly to escalate tensions between nuclear powers in a way that he certainly has in mind may go all the way to nuclear war; either as a desirable thing or then just a risk he's willing to take.

An act of criminal defamation and fraud with intended damages.

Certainly Zelensky is so delusional as to think his words matter outside what is convenient to his backers, but I don't think we should minimise the intended consequences of his actions.

What you describe, if true, simply puts into sharp relief the extent of Zelensky's delusions, which we should take into consideration in our analysis that Ukraine is lead by an out of control maniac willing to cause extreme damages on false pretences and lying to us.

You're right, we should be very worried about what damages he can practically achieve out-of-the-blue given his unstable and delusional mental state, thinking two polish citizens killed by a missile could be anything more than raising a few eyebrows even if it was Russia. Now that he's discovered this particular plan doesn't work, and no one cares what he has to say about it, we should be worried about what reckless and damaging options are within his grasp.

P.S.
I re-claim all I wrote, word by word: — neomac

Yes, go ahead and read your own words:

the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue. — neomac

"pre-condition for the kind of agreements" and "but Ukraine doesn’t have!"

You are making a "pre-condition" difference between Ukraine and the US and Soviet Union. Why you use the word "pre-condition". You are simply so ignorant of international relations that you were simply unaware that non-nuclear powers, including Ukraine, "rationally pursued" in your pseudo-intellectual-bullshit way of speaking, the same agreements, so obviously having nuclear weapons was not a precondition for pursuing these kinds of agreements (the reality is in direct contradiction to your claim).

Any "rational agent" that was actually aware they were not describing a precondition related to the result of negotiating an agreement, would then obviously clarify that: followed by an actual meaningful point; such as: "Of course, the agreements between the US and Soviet Union weren't of a kind that having nuclear weapons was a precondition, but here's an example of such an agreement that a nuclear power would rationally pursue but a non-nuclear power like Ukraine wouldn't rationally pursue--since if I don't even have one example for my hypothetical ... I'd look pretty foolish ... almost, but not as quite as foolish as changing my position to basically describe how decisions are made generally speaking: pursuing something you want for some reason and also considering the situation and what you know about it."

You'd say "of course Ukraine and many other nations don't have nuclear weapons and pursued the same agreements, but 'thinking about it' is what I mean is a preconditon to agreeing; both the US, the Soviet Union and everyone else thought about nuclear weapons, wherever they are, before agreeing to the same kind of agreements; there's no meaningful difference I am pointing to."

But that's obviously not your point, your point is obviously that the US and the Soviet Union could enter some kinds of agreements contingent on actually having nuclear weapons and it would be irrational if they didn't have nuclear weapons, making it a precondition which is why you literally say precondition, and non-nuclear powers would therefore not pursue those kinds of agreements as they lack the precondition to pursue those kinds of agreements as rational agents, at least as they exist in your head.

As that's exactly what you say. You even emphasise this difference with an exclamation mark: "but Ukraine doesn’t have!" If what Ukraine didn't have made no difference (to the kinds of agreements it could rational pursue), you would have said "but Ukraine doesn’t have! but of course that doesn't matter for these kinds of agreements we're talking about!!"

This isn't 1914 or 1939. — ssu

No. Apparently it's...

2010. — ssu

The sophistic art of the historicist...

When events from the past don't match your preferred theory say "ah, but things are different now".

When events in the past do match your pet theory say "see, the way things happened in the past shows us how they will happen today, nothing is different"

Voilà. One completely self-immunised theory.